


Don't Fear The Reaper

by BlueEyedArcher



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Flashbacks, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21667786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueEyedArcher/pseuds/BlueEyedArcher
Summary: Hell was not an apt way to describe what he had witnessed for there were no innocent men in Hell. There was no injustice, only righteous punishment dished out by an unforgiving devil. In war, there was no justice. There was no glory or honor. Only misery, pain and lies. Deceived by the men who claimed they knew best only to be forced out into the firing line with a barrel at your back if you so much as thought about retreat.
Relationships: Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid
Comments: 25
Kudos: 75





	Don't Fear The Reaper

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me after listening to the song The Green Fields of France by The Dropkick Murphy's which reminds me heavily of Jonathan Reid and what he went through serving in the war. The specific video I watched had photographs of the war as it was, not the censored cleaned up versions that were tossed around as polite propaganda. It was bloody and gruesome, it was filled with death and the gaunt hollow faces of young men struggling to survive on all sides.
> 
> The game doesn't go in deeper about Jonathan's service and time spent, what we hear is a brief vague admittance that he offers to others who have suffered as he did. I wanted to write something that hit on that more. I hope i could do him some justice in doing so.

“Stop it.” Jonathan called over the shrill screams of the dying, gurgled and guttural. The sounds of men far beyond his help. His fingers twitched, palms caked with the grime and blood of countless others he’s struggled to put back together only to watch them be gunned down once again, blood barely dried beneath their bandages. He stared in horror as the whistle blew, the death call at the end of an officer’s command. The man stood like the visage of the reaper himself as he drew his pistol and fired a round off at the frightened young man cowering on the crest of the trench, bullets spraying mud and debris back into his face as he shrank away. His brethren cut down with the artillery rattling off in the distance. His body recoiling back only to be met with a bullet in the head for refusing to sacrifice himself foolishly like the rest. 

Jonathan lunged at the officer, fingers slipping on the slick metal of the gun trying to stop his advances as he only added to the killing. It was bad enough that they feared for their lives upon leaving the trenches but to also be afraid of the same men who commanded them, the cold heartless murder of countrymen, brothers in arms. It was unfathomable.

“This is senseless!” Jonathan screamed, the taste of copper thick over his tongue as shells hit near their cover. They both fell into the puddles of rain and refuse that covered the bottom of the pits, the blood and fluids seeping into his jacket as he wrestled the gun away from the man. His job was to save lives, not stand by and watch them be butchered. The betrayal cut deep as he was struck in the side of the head. His vision whited out, swooning him enough to throw him off balance as the officer crawled away. Jonathan recovered enough to lunge at the man again, dragging him back away from the rifle propped against the bank. He felt the burning pain of a boot to his shoulder, heard the muttered curses that left the other man’s lips but Jonathan was stubborn. He bared bloodied teeth and ignored the burning heat in his stomach, the wretched bite of bile creeping up his throat as some part of him realized the consequences of his actions.

“There’s been enough killing!” He pleaded with desperate urgency. His fingers catching on the rough fabric of the man’s coat as he tried to pull him back. The grasp was wrenched free, pain jolted down his hands from the force as tendons were pulled and strained and he has a sneaking suspicion one of his fingers was just dislocated as the man twisted out of his reach. Jonathan scrambled across the ground, backing up to put distance between them. The strength in his legs was stolen by the sharp pain of a puncture he wasn’t aware of obtaining in the brisk fight. He raised his hands in a placating gesture, wincing as the world swam with a burst of flames and the bitter stench of gas flooding his senses. His eyes darted around the trench, fear slicing through him with wide terrified eyes. 

_ When had the enemy gotten so close?  _ The sound of gunfire was absent. A deafening silence pierced only by the heavy breathing of the two men. He twisted to search the banks but the darkness of night was thick, a fog carefully concealing the world around them. The sharp tang of copper ripped at his nostrils and made that burning heat in his stomach clench tighter. He shuddered as the world slipped out of focus. The voice of the officer was unfamiliar and distant. A sound that was thick with an accent so familiar yet so far away, a dialect that rang sharply in his ears like the echoing bells of an explosion.

He slumped against the ground with a sudden wave of fatigue. The officer stood before him, unseen features becoming more prominent. A prominent jawline dotted with dark shadows from a missed shave. Hair carefully swept out of his face aside from the bang that bobs over sharp blue eyes, gazing back at him with a burning fire. Jonathan’s gaze dropped to the ground, the blood on his hands was gone replaced by the discomforting tacky sensation of mud and the grime of the cobblestones that replaced the slurry of mud in the trenches. His knees were damp from the recent rain which slicked the earth but nowhere near as soaked as he had thought them to be. The trenches blurred away to something far more familiar. The gloom of London looming all around him as he scrambled for something to cling to. To make sense of the world that twisted and warped around him. The sense of dread still lingered, the fear of the gun shots that had cut down the young soldier with a swift type of certainty, calculated and cold. Indifference at its most extreme.

“Reid.” McCullum’s voice came more clearly now, silencing the shreds of his nightmares as he demanded Jonathan’s full attention. The man held his sword carefully at his side, the tip was smeared in the dark streaks of blood. By the smell, he could tell it was his own. His eyes shifted to the pain in his legs. McCullum had severed his Achilles tendon to stop his approach. He could feel the painful burn as his body healed the damaged, a slow process for sure. He couldn’t remember the last time he fed but the hunger was startlingly absent. “Jonathan!”

Jonathan startled at the sharp tone, his body jolted away from the hunter’s commanding voice. “Look at me.” He did as he was told, his chin lifted just enough to meet those cold calculated eyes. The eyes of a man turned predator. The eyes of a hunter looming over his quarry. Yet there was something more beneath it all. The harshness was a front, a well built facade that belied the truth below. Their was heat in those eyes, like the flames that danced like flickering imps across no man’s land but the warmth was softer. Like a welcoming furnace after a long cold winter night. It was conflict and beauty and horror all wrapped up in one. They bore into him with unrelenting focus and Jonathan couldn’t stop the urge to recoil back and hide. To find shelter and wait out the shelling and the hopeless barrage of bullets that would penetrate his person. He prepared himself for the shrapnel bite to lance through him as he had all those years ago.

“Jonathan.” His voice was softer but no less demanding. Fingers gripped his chin, firm at first, preventing the doctor from flinching away then slowly it relaxed as Jonathan did. His eyes were wide and wild, heart hammering like a war drum in his chest, loud and ominous, demanding to be headed.  _ This place isn’t safe.  _ It screamed in his mind.  _ The next wave of shelling is near!  _

_ Get to cover! _

_ Find shelter! _

_ Retreat! _

The voices of his commanding officers and his brothers in arms rang loudly in his ears. The distant screams of wounded men dying in the hills and ditches dug by the violent bursts of grenades and artillery. The guns sounded, thunder cracks across the sky as blood rained like a vicious glory from the Gods. A twisted malicious visage that painted his face and stole what scant traces of hope he could muster in the small peaceful hours of morning. Hell was not an apt way to describe what he had witnessed for there were no innocent men in Hell. There was no injustice, only righteous punishment dished out by an unforgiving devil. In war, there was no justice. There was no glory or honor. Only misery, pain and lies. Deceived by the men who claimed they knew best only to be forced out into the firing line with a barrel at your back if you so much as  _ thought  _ about retreat.

“Reid!” McCullum’s voice broke through the glazed expression. His sword was absent now, returned to his scabbard as both hands gripped his face so hard he wondered if it would bruise. The hunter forced his gaze to meet those pleading eyes, begging silently for the good doctor to return to his senses. “I know not where you’ve gone but come back to me Jonathan.”

“Geoffrey.” His voice was brittle, a hoarse rasp as he reached up to feel the warmth against his skin. How real and true that touch was. He relaxed into it, ignoring the tightening panic in his chest as he drew in a shaky breath. “Tell me it's over.” He asked.

“What?”

Jonathan paused, drawing another breath as he spoke up, his words a little more stable now. “Tell me I don’t have to go back.” He felt the rough ball that threatened to choke him and swallowed thickly. “I don’t want to go back there Geoffrey. So many died in the trenches. So many were killed by our own.” He shook his head as Geoffrey’s hands relaxed, shifting down to grip his shoulders. “They were so afraid.” His voice trailed off with a broken whimper, a sympathy he had shed so many times in the early years but had felt so brittle afterwards, cold and disconnected from the rest of the world. Every life lost was a dagger to his heart and with every man that plead to him to save him, he died a little more each day.

“It’s alright Jonathan. You won’t be going back, yeah.” He assured. The certainty in his voice betrayed the anxiety that made his heart skip in his chest. McCullum cleared his throat as he adjusted their bodies, dropping to kneel in front of Reid as he pulled the vampire in closer. Strong arms embraced him, a firm hug that would have felt crushing to anyone else. Jonathan relished in it, let it pull him in and ground him to the reality in which he stood. “You’ll stay right here with me. No more war. Its over, remember?”

Yes, he remembered now. The war was over. The epidemic had seen its last victim. It was done. The end had come and Jonathan was left to the endless wiles of time. No longer the soldier or the prodigal son. He wasn’t even a man and he was barely making it by as a doctor. He tried his best but since the epidemic he felt ill equipped to handle the world as it was. People were coming and going, his workload had slowed down and he was beginning to drift as his sense of purpose was overcome by the absence brought on by his newfound immortality. He was cursed to an eternity of death and loss. Just as he stood by on the battlefield and watched helplessly as men died before him, dozens by the hour. More bodies than they had hands to help move them all. He would be forced to witness all he loved fall in time, even Geoffrey.

“Geoffrey.” His voice was strangled as he leaned into the firm hold, his head dipped to rest against the hunter’s shoulder. Strong hands brushed over his back, soothing circles of reassurance as he waited it out, letting the vampire work through his words and muster up his composure. It was a rare scene to see him so disheveled and out of sorts but McCullum was not new to the experience of trauma and all the complexities it brought with it. It would seem even vampires were susceptible to human flaws. Or maybe, just maybe it was that uniquely human trait that still resided within his Jonathan. The man took so much to heart, though strong willed and sharp minded, he was soft at the center of it all. It showed in the gentleness he exhibited towards his patients and the unfortunate ones that crossed paths with him on the streets. It was that rare and very human side of the man that Geoffrey had fallen for and come to love about the leech. 

His compassion, his  _ humanity  _ and his kindness that went beyond that of any man or mortal. All of it woven together over a lifetime of heartbreak and struggles. Even the conflict of war couldn’t take that away from him. But he was just that, beneath the elegant veneer of class and sophistication. Take away the fangs and the tired eyes, and you have a man. Just a man trying to do his damn best for the world and those around him. He’s fought and bled for his country and his brethren, he’s ended the unforeseen apocalypse before it could gain any ground and he’s sacrificed everything along the way. He was stubborn and determined with a fire that raged deep inside, one to rival Geoffrey’s own some days. But it was a spark of light in this dark and gloomy world they’d found themselves in and he refused to let it be extinguished.

He leaned over Jonathan’s shoulder and inspected the blood stains on the backs of his legs where the fabric was cleanly cut at the end of his blade. “Can you walk?” He asked after several moments.

Jonathan paused before answering, looking back at himself as he shifted a foot and tested the structural integrity of his own limbs. “I think so, yes.” It came out as a breathy huff.

Geoffrey nodded. “Good. Come on then. Up you go. Let’s get you home.” He hooked his arms around Jonathan, pulling him by his shoulders to help him to his feet. The vampire wobbled, unsteady at first before stumbling the first step. Geoffrey carried his weight, helping him stabilize his balance before taking a step to the side. Jonathan muttered a soft thanks and winced upon the first few steps. The tendons were healed but still hurt, a slow progression that would fix itself in a few hours. Geoffrey felt only minutely guilty for the attack but Jonathan had thrown himself at him with such desperation and ferocity that he had no other choice. His mind was somewhere far away, his pleas making no sense at all as he grappled for Geoffrey’s revolver. What set him off, Geoffrey could only assume after he had executed a wandering Skal. He hadn’t been himself the last few days and Geoffrey’s fears were confirmed when Jonathan screamed about _ gas _ and  _ shellings _ . 

Not even immortality can cure all wounds.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and kudos below and tell me what you think! I'm still relatively new to this fandom and slowly inching my way through one fic at a time as I get to know these characters better.


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